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Aucbvax.5010 fa.works utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works Sat Nov 7 14:26:59 1981 Works Digest V1 #33 >From JSol@RUTGERS Sat Nov 7 13:54:40 1981 WorkS Digest Saturday, 7 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 33

Today's Topics: Smalltalk Usefulness Information on IBM System 38 WorkStation Languages TI 16-Bit Chip ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 1981 09:09 PST From: TonyWest at PARC-MAXC Subject: How to get IBM System/38 Documentation To: Stavros M. Macrakis <MACRAK MIT-MC AT> cc: TonyWest at PARC-MAXC

About finding out more technical information on the IBM System 38:

There was a nice collection of technical papers published by IBM in 1978. You might try to get hold of it:

"IBM System/38 Technical Developments" published by IBM GSD (then) publication order number G580-0237

However - I think this report is out of print, in which case, what I recommend is that you call an IBM branch office, tell them about this report and what you want, and ask them to look up for you the list of publications available for the S/38 (which has since been announced, so there is plenty available about it). All Branch offices have a list of publications and can order them for you (though you may have to produce some money sometime for the books).

Tony West Computer Science Laboratory Xerox PARC

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Date: 5 Nov 1981 01:07:49-PST From: decvax!ittvax!cox at Berkeley Subject: Suitable workstation languages?

Being of the Evolutionary, rather than Revolutionary, school of thought I've been concerned over means for experimenting with a language like Smalltalk on a UNIX (i.e. READILY portable TODAY) base.

The approach so far has been to use the C compiler as an "assembly language" for a virtual Smalltalk machine; i.e. to develop a Smalltalk compiler that produces C language as output, and then bootstrap from this to versions that bring up more and more of the stuff that UNIX doesn't help with (automatic garbage collection, incremental compilation, etc, etc.).

The part that works so far is as follows: a C precompiler (of the lex/yacc school) reads a language close to C, and turns that into C language containing data initialization statements that define class relationships, in a manner as close to Smalltalk as I can glean from the available information. So with this one can experiment with programming in objects, classes and messaging, although the input syntax isn't Smalltalk 81 and most of the Smalltalk 81 environment is also missing.

The next step isn't working yet, but should be soon, which is to complete a (non-incremental) compiler for Smalltalk 81 syntax, which uses primitives generated from the step above for data storage. This compiler generates interpreted code, for which an interpreter will be written (in preprocessed C).

Subsequent steps can also be envisioned, but I'll probably stop this approach well short of "Complete Smalltalk on UNIX".

Any interest out there?

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Date: 6 Nov 1981 (Friday) 1236-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: Can smalltalk work ?

Technology wise we will probably see an S-machine, microcoded to do the byte-code operations very efficiently.

Will the 'programmers of tomorrow' use this concept in programming versus classical PASCAL/Fortran/ . . . styles ?

Hank

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From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: Size of OS/360

In "The Mythical Man-Month", Fred Brooks estimates that over 5000 man-YEARS went into OS/360 between 1963 and 1966.

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Date: 5 Nov 1981 09:05:36-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: TI 16-bit chip

TI introduced a 24-MHz TMS99000 MPU, with a $65 price in 100-piece quantities. (Quotes from the Nov. 2nd Electronic News).

It includes an "on-chip macrostore memory with 1K bytes of ROM and 3K bytes or RAM for storage of frequently-used functions which can then be accessed at full processor speeds." The company is preparing a chip version using that macrostore for floating point operations, and said that part, designated the TMS99110, would be available in December at $99. The instruction set is a superset of the TMS9995 and TMS9900, with object code compatibility. There are also new instructions for multiprecision arithmetic, stack operations, parallel I/O, and memory bit manipulation. It has "an instantaneous address reach of 256K bytes of main memory and 120K bytes of internal and/or external macrostore memory", as well as compatibility with the TIM99610 memory mapper for control of address space up to 16M bytes.

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